“We believe in Australia’s north ... This is the most exciting time to be an Australian. This is the most exciting time for Australia. We have greater opportunities than we have ever had before. And they are no greater than here in northern Australia,” the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said yesterday.
Relax, northern Australia. This enthusiasm will pass.
Within months, possibly days, the caravan (and possibly the new Northern Australia minister, Matt Canavan) will have moved on. Remember the prime minister’s “deep interest” in cities five months ago?
“Historically the federal government has had a limited engagement with cities, and yet that is where most Australians live,” he said last September. “It is where the bulk of our economic growth can be found. We often overlook the fact that liveable cities, efficient productive cities, the environment of cities, are economic assets.”
And so our innovative prime minister created a new portfolio: minister for cities and the built environment. Yet in this week’s reshuffle he overlooked the importance of liveable cities by demoting that new ministry to half a parliamentary secretary’s responsibility.
Oh, but our PM is also agile, explaining that the new assistant minister for cities and digital transformation wasn’t a demotion of the cities portfolio so much as a promotion. Hmmm. What’s next, elevating the role of the health portfolio by handing it to the newest, most junior assistant minister in government?
I could not care less if we have a cities minister. It was always nothing more than a stunt of a portfolio, designed to produce exactly what it did: fawning praise from the media and lobby groups. As I’ve pointed out previously, there is very little the commonwealth can contribute to making our cities more liveable beyond funding major transport infrastructure.
What I do care about, what we should all care about, is whether we have a prime minister and a government that is delivering considered, developed policy positions based in equal parts on evidence and their core values.
Australia has already recently endured a prime minister – Kevin Rudd – who governed like a toddler: obsessed with a new, bright, shiny toy one day, only to be off in another direction the next, distracted by the next policy toy and leaving the previous one in the back of the cupboard untouched. For goodness sake, we don’t need another such PM.
Not only was Rudd easily distractible, he was also extraordinarily flexible in his personal policy commitments: the “greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time”, climate change, became a low-order priority rather than something worth the fight. The emotion exhibited in his apology to the stolen generations never amounted to any progress towards constitutional recognition or agreement-making with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. His plan to “end the blame game” in health was nothing more than an incredibly generous funding agreement in which the states walked away the big winners.
By now you have probably worked out that I am no fan of Rudd (that may have been obvious earlier). I confess I neither like Rudd’s political practices nor him as a person. I do like Turnbull as a person. He’s charming, urbane and quite intelligent. But his political style? In many ways, it’s looking reminiscent of Rudd.
Remember the “thrill” that surrounded Rudd’s 2020 summit? Here finally was a PM who was going to have an adult conversation with the nation. Sound familiar?
Remember the Henry tax review? It was going to deliver the most significant overhaul of our tax system, setting Australia up for the 21st century. Hmm, where have we heard that lately? Tax white paper anyone?
Remember “programmatic specificity”? Yes, “innovation and agility” is less ridiculous, but it is all the same waffle without saying anything.
Some in the current Labor opposition may not like this comparison with Rudd. They are keen to point out Turnbull’s similarity with another previous prime minister, Tony Abbott. Labor made great merriment of Abbott’s statement just after he lost the prime ministership that in a range of important areas – climate change, border protection, and marriage equality – nothing had changed. Turnbull was running the same Abbott government, with the same Abbott policies. At the time, I rolled my eyes at Labor’s glee, confident that within a few months significant policy changes would likely occur. But five months on, the opposition has been vindicated in bringing this charge.
Tax reform? For a prime minister who was going to reclaim control of the economic narrative, Turnbull seems to have lost the plot and lost control of the tax reform storyline.
Same-sex marriage? For a prime minister who wanted the parliament to vote on this matter before the next election, Turnbull has settled on the most expensive, most drawn out and least necessary plebiscite option.
Border protection? There are still children in detention, there are still people languishing on Nauru and Manus Island with no prospect of resettlement, and there is still no progress towards a regional resettlement scheme.
Climate change? For a prime minister who decried the policy of government picking winners and losers in favour of a market-based approach, Turnbull has now thrown his weight behind Abbott’s ridiculous and wasteful Direct Action plan.
Meanwhile, there has been no progress or advancement on higher education, childcare or the defence white paper, key policy areas languishing in a paralysed and now P-plated cabinet.
In the past six months, here’s what’s changed: 12 ministers gone, three through scandal or under investigation. Labor is winning the policy debate, with considered, detailed and costed policies on superannuation tax concessions, negative gearing, capital gains tax, education funding, multinational tax avoidance, cigarette taxes, climate change and renewable energy, infrastructure funding and innovation.
And this week the polls took their first turn away from the Turnbull government. Enthusiasm is a great asset, but it’s not one northern Australia, or indeed the prime minister of Australia, should bank on through to election day.
